MusicTibet.com

Techung shines with Best Asian Album award

MIYAJIMA, Japan, 7 November 2006 Techung has won the Best Asian Album Award for A Compilation of Tibetan Folk and Freedom Songs ( http://cdbaby.com/cd/techung3) at the 2006 Just Plain Folks (JPF) Music Awards in Los Angeles, California on 4 November. JPF Music is one of America's largest grassroot music groups ( http://www.jpfolks.com/).

Techung is a Tibetan singer/songwriter living in exile in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is best known for his performances of traditional Tibetan music, dance and opera. His given name and surname is Tashi Dhondup Sharzur but uses his childhood nickname, Techung, when performing as a solo artist. Whether performing in traditional or contemporary styles, his dual goals are to revive Tibetan music in the Tibetan community and to expose the rich performing cultural tradition of his homeland to the world community.

Techung grew up in Dharamshala, India, where his family, and tens of thousands of other Tibetans, are living in exile. Because of the limited educational opportunities open to young refugees in the 1970s, he was enrolled at age 9 in the newly formed Tibetan Dance and Drama School, now known as the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA). In his 19 years of training at the Institute, he studied all aspects of the Tibetan performing arts — folk, court, and religious music — through the oral teaching tradition used by the venerated Tibetan elders. He toured with TIPA in its first international tour as a leading child actor in 1975-76 and for many years afterwards. After emigrating to the US, he co-founded the San Francisco-based Chaksampa Tibetan Dance and Opera Company in 1989.

His voice and music have been featured as soundtracks in numerous film and documentaries.